NEWBERRY — During the Newberry Soil and Water Conservation District’s Annual Member Affiliate Banquet, awards were given out to community members and businesses that assisted the District throughout the year.
“Keep Newberry County Beautiful,” which the District manages, was first up with the Let’s Keep Newberry County Beautiful scholarships, which were awarded to Brooke Ball and Will Lever.
“Brooke Ball is a current Newberry College student, she also was the recipient of this scholarship for 2016 as well. Brooke is majoring in nursing at Newberry College,” said Doug Heydt NSWCD treasurer. “Will Lever is a current student of Clemson University, where he is studying diversified agriculture. Will also won this scholarship and the Newberry NSWCD scholarship for 2016 as well.”
Heydt presented the Newberry County Beautiful Award to Piedmont Technical College. Heydt commented that PTC has been wonderful to work with over the last several years — from allowing KNCB to use their storage for a shoe drive, to allowing them to rent the conference room at a discounted rate.
“PTC has been a great business partner and friend to KNCB for many years. In particular, Beth Jagaer and Ashley Boone, they have done tremendous jobs on the KNCB Board and added so much to our organization,” Heydt said.
The final KNCB award, the Volunteer of the Year award, was given to William Pressly Hall Jr. and Heather Williams. Heydt said that this year they wanted to recognize two individuals that made an impact through the KNCB Camp Conservation.
“Mr. Pressly Hall and Ms. Heather Williams came out all five days of camp to volunteer for hours on end to helping the campers with the daily activities. They had the best attitudes and made the entire process so much more enjoyable just by being around them,” he said. “Ms. Williams also volunteered every day of camp last year as well and brought the exact same enthusiasm to each day’s start.”
Ben Setzler, NSWCD chairman, gave out the NSWCD awards. First up were the scholarships awarded to Jessie Russell and Destin Marley Long.
“Jessie is a current student at Piedmont Technical College, studying diversified agriculture. Marley is a current student at Clemson University, studying agricultural education,” Setzler said.
The Business Affiliate Award was given to The Newberry Observer. According to Setzler, this award is one that NSWCD gives out to commend their partners for assisting with their efforts to educate and outreach on a larger scale.
“This next award recipient has been one of our most gracious and involved partners for the last several years. From the time we hired our new district coordinator (Danielle Himsey) three and a half years ago, until now. This business has gone above and beyond to ensure our programs were in the public eye and the community knew about every event we’ve had,” Setzler said. “After years now, we still can count on The Newberry Observer — specifically Andrew Wigger and Patricia Edwards and Elyssa Haven — when they worked at The Observer, to always put the District’s best interest first. We would like to thank The Newberry Observer for all of their hard work on articles and their unwavering support to the District over these last several years.”
The final award of the night was the Willie B Piester Award, given to George Oxner. Setzler said this award is the most coveted and is in recognition of the “Conservationist of the Year.”
“George Oxner has been a long-time member of the Newberry Soil and Water Conservation District. He has also worked with NRCS for many years on CSP, EQIP and other Conservation plans to implement conservation techniques on his land. Even before NRCS Conservation Plans came to Newberry County, George has been working since the 1950s to improve wildlife habitat and sustainable forestry practices,” Setzler said. “He has always made conservation a priority on his land and he states that ‘conservation is not just something you do, it is a way of life.’ He has been a pleasant and enjoyable person to be around and has allowed us to use his land several times to show surrounding landowners how conservation can be beneficial.”
